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Friday, July 11, 2014

Benefits of Swimming for Dogs

On a hot summer day, there's nothing better than a cool dip in a refreshing pool. And a swim can also provide some great fitness benefits for dogs and their people, too!

Rocco recently had the chance to go swimming at his pal Miko's pool.

Of course, it's always safety first with pools and dogs and we kept an eye on the boys at all times.

One of the first things both Miko and Rocco learned was the location of the steps to get in and out the pool. Rocco wasted no time in finding the steps and he launched himself into the water on his own!

Rocco swam out and back and found the steps with no trouble at all. Good boy!

Some terrific benefits of swimming for both dogs (and people, too!) include:

Another fun game to play in a pool is raft balancing! Rocco and Miko show off their balancing skills as they work their core muscles on the unsteady surface. Just like the games Rocco plays on his wobble board, balancing on the raft helps build body awareness, strength and confidence too!

Then, after a swim, there's nothing better than a wet dog game of chase!

Rocco loves the water and he's getting to be a stronger swimmer too. We don't get to swim too often, since we don't have a pool in our own backyard. But we both love it, every chance we get!

Does your dog like to swim?

Don't forget to enter our K9 Kamp giveaway with over $350 in terrific prizes! And remember, July 25th is the day to link up your K9 Kamp backyard fitness games.

And, we're also honored to be nominated for a Pettie in the Best Overall Blog category. We're in some great company, including several of our pals. Check out the list here, and then to vote, click on the tab at the top, right of that page for "finalist voting," log in with your email or Facebook and then vote! We hope you'll consider voting for us once a day through August 7!

The fun and games continue every Friday with FitDog Friday, the weekly Blog Hop brought to you by To Dog With Love, SlimDoggy and Peggy's Pet Place to promote a healthy active lifestyle for pets (and their people, too!). Join in every Friday by linking up your FitDog story or visiting the blogs in the Hop.

Congrats on being a Pettie finalist. Miko has a really nice pool! I found out this week just how much Wilhelm now likes to swim- he jumped off a dock behind me! Fortunately he was on a leash but, yikes! I wish he and Rocco could swim together- they'd have a blast!

Those are the cutest pictures! Barley is totally uninterested in the water, but she's never had a chance to be around something calmer like a pool--she's used to rushing rivers and crashing waves at the lake, so I can't blame her for not wanting to get in. That raft balance looks tough!

Simba has swam before, but it doesn't seem like he likes it all that great. I'll have to let him do it again and see if he likes it or not. I'm thinking about getting him a kiddie pool to play in first. When I put him in a pool it seemed as if he just thought of it as a big bathtub LOL. Congrats on your nomination!

Swimming saved our sanity the first summer we had Küster. He had bad pano flare ups and the vet put him on crate rest to keep his bones from being jarred. A high drive puppy on crate rest is a nightmare. So, we started driving him out to the lake and letting him swim until he was good and tired every night. It was SO worth it, and the boy still loves to swim!

We love the new look of your blog! Mr. K loves to swim but sadly, he can't. We just bought him his own Scottie-safe pool. Here he is checking it out for the first time: http://www.scottiemom.com/2014/06/gone-swimmin.html. Safe swimming, friends! Much love, The Scottie Mom.

The swimming fitness tracker is great, This year, we saw a lot of wearable devices flood to the market.swimming fitness tracker It swimming, since that was the way I expected to convey this swimming.ithealthfitness.com